Considering SparrowsSample

Day 5

CONSIDERING SPARROWS

A 2021 study estimated the world’s House Sparrow popula­tion to be over 1.6 billion, making it the most numerous wild bird in existence. Anywhere you find humans, you’re apt to find a House Sparrow—a little brown bird with a black bib.

Perhaps familiarity breeds contempt, because people have long found this bird to be unremarkable, annoying, and destructive.

With that in mind, it’s unsettling that when Jesus says “consider the birds,” he’s potentially talking about a House Spar­row. “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (Matthew 6:26-27 NIV).

Odds are good that, up to that point, no one listening to Jesus’s sermon had bothered to consider said sparrow, except possibly as a chirpy nuisance—the vermin on the mount.

Yet what humans overlook, the Father sees. He values even the things we devalue, and he does so with intimate deliberateness. Jesus uses questions of avian value to solidify the truth of God’s compassion: “Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care” (Matthew 10:29 NIV).

Jesus leverages this truth to reassure us of the Father’s care for his children: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life” (Matthew 6:25 NIV); “do not worry about tomorrow, for tomor­row will worry about itself” (6:34 NIV); “don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows” (10:31 NIV).

Jesus’s birdwatching is the reason Paul can write these well-known words to the Philippians: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7 NIV).

Remember that, far greater than the seed of sparrows and the clothing of lilies (Matthew 6:28–­ 29), Jesus feeds us with the bread of life and clothes us in his own righteousness. The reason Paul could say, a few verses later, “My God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19) is because He already had. The Cross is the down payment on every other answered prayer.

Be anxious for nothing, my friend. You are worth more than many sparrows.

What specific anxieties do you need to give to God today, trusting in his loving care for you?

We hope you are encouraged by this reading plan. To learn more about CONSIDERING SPARROWS by pastor Kevin Burrell, click here.